Working to Be a Leader

I’m not alone in saying that this is a busy summer.  Almost everyone I speak with state that they have been busier than usual during this summer.  Mine isn’t a complaint; I’m glad to be busy working and playing.

However, looking at the date of my last blog helped me realize how busy I’ve been; the last time I posted anything was Thursday, June 3^rd—over five weeks ago.  Where did June and the first half of July go?  It was a busy few weeks but I didn’t know that it was so busy that I wouldn’t have or take the time to write a blog.  I love to write blogs.  How and where did I invest my time doing other things?

One major investment I made was to begin a written project, specially a book—a term paper on steroids.  After positioning the book, I created the outline and drafted the preface and introduction.  Built around the experiences and results of teaching at CUNY, I will be the editor for contributions from my current and former students who are working to be leaders.  My return is not financial as much as how the book evolved to become a platform to share the insights and knowledge gained from my experiential approach to student learning.

Hendersons in the Merced River under El Capitan in Yosemite National Park

Another investment of time was spent at the Henderson Family Reunion in Tuolumne County, California.  My niece Dr. Tomi Sue Henderson hosted the event and prepared amazingly delicious food for our big family dinner in her backyard—as well as our picnic in Yosemite National Park.  It was great to get together with relatives, some of whom I hadn’t seen for a few years.  One of my nephews and his wife brought their four children who range in age from two- to eight-years-old.  We had a lot of fun together taking a train ride with an engine that used to pull passenger cars through the Gold Country in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.  Strolling for 1.5 miles through the Calaveras Big Trees, the Hendersons saw two groves of giant sequoia redwood trees, some of which are 2,000 to 3,000 years old, 250 to 300 feet high, and 25 to 30 feet across.

What else did I do?  Coach executives, meet with colleagues, manage administrative matters that include dealing with computer challenges that take days to resolve and taking more days to learn how to use my new iPad, and, at the same time, continue my professional development!  My “other career” is going to be as a Pilates instructor and, to formalize my seven years of taking over 1,000 classes, I participated in a 2.5 day Beginners Mat Certification Program last weekend (my results will be in the mail in a few weeks).

There’s been more.  Another five-session program of “Supercharge Your Career” at Zicklin just finished; it was a fabulous class because of the extraordinarily supportive, focused, and engaged participants.  Last week, I started teaching “A Management Approach to Organizational Behavior” during Zicklin’s second summer session—a class that meets three nights a week!  The second summer session of “Supercharge Your Career” is set to start this Tuesday evening and end on August 17—adding a fourth night to my teaching.

May is Borderline Personality Disorder Awareness Month.  Thanks to the efforts of Perry Hoffman, Ph.D., President, and members of the Board of Directors of the National Education Alliance for Borderline Personality Disorder (NEA-BPD), the U.S. House of Representatives on April 1, 2008, acknowledged the need to bring the attention of the disorder that impacts all areas of one’s life to the attention of the general public.  “All aspects of one’s life” include the workplace where managers are often at a loss to know why employees act out, demonstrate wide mood swings, or engage in self-destructive behaviors.   Below is information that may help you understand your staff better.

Perry Hoffman; Marsha Linehan, Prof. of Psychology, Washington; Dale Terilli; at NEA-BPD's "Meet and Greet the Experts"

Perry and I met in 2006 when we both had suites on the same floor in an office building.  Also on the same floor was the office of The Connections Place (TCP), an innovative job preparedness program for those with BPD, which was co-founded by Beth Elliott, Ph.D., and Dale Terilli.  When asked if I would volunteer for TCP, I agreed to conduct mock interviews with their clients, hire those ready to get a job for project work, and give short presentations on workplace issues.  Perry invited me to attend a “Family Connections” training session so that I could better understand the dimensions of BPD behaviors and the impact it has on loved ones.

A serious mental illness diagnosed more often than schizophrenia or bipolar (manic-depressive illness) combined, BPD is prevalent in an estimated 10 million Americans.  According to NEA-BPD, symptoms of BPD include impulsivity, rage, bodily self-harm, recurrent suicidal behavior, unstable relationships, and frequent career changes.  Often diagnosed in young adults, BPD is also diagnosed in adolescents.

A special NEA-BPD Conference, “Genetics to Treatment:  Leaders Speak about Research Findings and Implications” was held at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond in early March.  Curious about the role genetics play in the disorder—I see both clients and students who fit that diagnosis plus that was my diagnosis thirty years ago—I attended the conference coordinated by Patricia Woodward, M.A.T., Secretary/Treasurer of the NEA-BPD Board.   Audio and video recordings of the “Genetics to Treatment” conference are available at the NEA-BPD website.

“The degree to which Borderline Personality Disorder is caused by inborn factors called the ‘level of inheritability’ is estimated to be 68%,” states Dr. John Gunderson in a booklet entitled, “A BPD Brief:  An Introduction to Borderline Personality Disorder—Diagnosis, Origins, Course, and Treatment.”  BPD itself is not inherited, he and the other excellent presenters stressed.  It is the biogenetic dispositions that are passed along he emphasized during his presentation on the “Development of BPD” which included the genetics of BPD.  An elder in the field of BPD, Dr. Gunderson is both a Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, and Director, Center for Treatment and Research on BPD, Mclean Hospital, Belmont, MA.

The first presenter of the day thankfully was Dr. Kenneth S. Kendler, Rachel Brown Banks Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry at the Virginia Commonwealth University; Professor of Human Genetics; Director, Psychiatric Genetics Research Program; Director, Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics.  I was very glad that my mind was sharp early in the day and that I was sitting in the third row; I could focus my total attention on the details of the research he shared and actually understand the information he conveyed.

Instead of the details, however, following are some of the conclusions of Dr. Kendler’s presentation:  “All major psychiatric and drug use disorders are heritable, although the degree of genetic influence differs substantially across disorders.  For many disorders, gene action on psychiatric disorders is not static but rather is developmentally dynamic.  For many disorders, genetic and environmental risk factors do not just ‘add’ together.  Rather, genes influence:  sensitivity to the pathogenic effect of environment stressors; probability of exposure to high risk environments.  Discovering risk genes for psychiatric disorders is not purely academic as they provide the best chance we have for understanding the biological substrate of these disorders and identifying potentially new drug targets.”

John G. Gunderson, MD; Robert O. Friedel, MD; Kenneth S. Kendler, MD

How does all this information apply to managers in the workplace and what they need to know about employees’ behaviors?

 One way to answer that question was part of the presentation by Dr. Robert O. Friedel, Distinguished Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Virginia Commonwealth University, and Professor Emeritus, University of Alabama at Birmingham, who spoke about “The Treatment of BPD with Medications:  A Neurobiological Approach.”  Dr. Fiedel is the author of Borderline Personality Disorder Demystified:  An Essential Guide for Understanding and Living with BPD.  He wrote the book for two reasons:  to fill the need for more factual information on the disorder and, since he knew how his sister had suffered with BPD, to try to help those with BPD.

One of the first slides he put on the screen was a picture of his sister Denise, a poignant look at a woman whose life was interrupted by a range of behaviors that evoked much pain and sorrow for her and her loved ones.  Thanks to innovative therapeutic approaches and the research by the presenters and their colleagues around the world, there is a greater understanding of how to manage the appropriate medications creating a more positive  prognosis for recovery from BPD.

Attending the “Genetics to Treatment” conference was challenging and extremely informative.   It has given me greater confidence in having conversations with students who I think would find a visit to the college’s counseling center helpful.  Using the appropriate language for a referral as an instructor is important.  It is also important if you are a manager and need to suggest that an employee would benefit from speaking with someone and that they can, for instance, contact the Employee Assistance Program coordinator at your company for help.  I never mention exactly why I think someone should see a counselor; that would be a diagnosis and I am not qualified to do that.  What I mention is that talking with someone might be helpful to get through a stressful period or to deal with an issue now rather than later in life.

Often individuals, managers, or loved ones think that if a person tries hard enough, they can control their moods or behaviors at work or home.  In truth, that’s not always the case, as I know from personal experience.  People need treatment for disorders like BPD, treatment with a mental health professional who may or may not prescribe medications.  However, as is becoming clearer and clearer in the field of personality disorders and other mental illnesses, genetics are lighting the path to the development of effective medications, a breakthrough for an even brighter outlook for those with BPD.

“It sounds like this trip is a soul refresher,” my niece Nancy wrote me after she learned of my vacation plans to visit her cousin Tomi Sue.  My week away from New York City was a refreshing and invigorating experience.  It was a time to put working to be a leader aside and focus on being surrounded by nature and enjoying my life.

 Tomi Sue lives in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, about 2½ hours due east of Oakland, California.  The population of the towns there are small by any—but especially NYC—standards:  150 to 1,000 to 6,000 (one of the largest) all nestled among oak, pine, and other trees.  It was just the locale I needed to get refreshment after a long, snowy, and busy winter in the big city.

 Spring had arrived and I basked in the sun while looking at the fields of wild flowers carpeting the five acres of Tomi Sue’s land—and beyond—such as goldfield, buttercup, etc.  What especially caught my attention were the poppies, the California state flower and a favorite since I was taught a poem in childhood, “Poppy golden poppy, shining in the sun….”

Golden Poppy

 The petals of poppies are closed in the morning and open as the sun rises.  While watching for the poppies to open, I could look out “across the street” and watch the cows and a bull or two begin their day feeding on the grass of a pasture.  A big ear jack rabbit caught my—and Tomi Sue’s dog’s—attention.  Birds were serenading the earth and calling me to get up and go for a walk on the grounds—which meant I had to say good-bye to the cat and could say hello to the resident horse.

 Later, sitting on the porch and basking in the sun, I felt the stress from the life of a New Yorker begin to gradually fade away.  It was helped to evaporate by a trip to Yosemite National Park, my favorite place to visit and explore.  My older sisters took their younger sisters on trips there when I was about eight or nine.  Through the years, I’ve returned to Yosemite with college friends, my husband, and even alone.  A car trip to the valley at 4,000 feet or Glacier Point at 7,200 feet or a strenuous backpacking trip close but not to the top of Half Dome at 8,800 feet brought a sense of peace and tranquility.

 “Everyone needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and cheer and give strength to body and soul alike,” John Muir is quoted in National Parks:  America’s Best Idea by Dayton Duncan, a book based on the Ken Burns’ six-part series for PBS.  Yosemite is my place of beauty. 

Me next to Merced River in Yosemite Valley

On a Sunday, Tomi Sue and I spent time in Yosemite to hike up part of a trail to see a waterfall she had heard about but not seen.  Although not in the shape I was when I could hike to the top of that trail and back down in one day, I nevertheless made it to the spot where we could see Illoyette Falls—and on our way look back to see Yosemite Falls.

 During the rest of my stay in the foothills, I was able to soak up the scenery and refresh my soul with the green of the land, the friendliness of the people, and the vistas of snow covered mountains.  My phone service only worked in a few areas and my data didn’t download—which was okay by me.  Only checking e-mail at Tomi Sue’s office a few times, I felt released and relaxed.

 Today, I’m sitting at my desk, looking at my computer screen, and writing this entry to share with you some details of my vacation while also preserving my memories.  Now, getting back to working to be a leader, I am putting on my coach’s hat to ask you:  Is it time for you to take a vacation?  If not poppies, what will you take time to watch?  And, most importantly, how will you refresh your soul?

As a young child, I’d get up on Thanksgiving morning with the smell and look of wonderful food filling my senses.  While Mom was busy cooking a 22 pound turkey, making homemade Parker House rolls (the best I ever tasted), and creating the rest of our traditional meal, I’d watch the Macy’s parade on the TV.  Later, I’d join my sisters in getting the table ready for dinner that could include seven or twelve or more family members and friends.

Mom was born in New York City and left in 1920—before the Macy’s parade started in 1924.  Living in Los Angeles on what could have been a pretty warm day, we watched the thematic floats roll by on the TV screen, marching bands from around the country perform, and large balloons guided by strong ropes and stronger Macy employees float along the parade route of onlookers looking as if they were freezing.

Maybe that’s the reason that a couple of years after I moved into an appartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan just two blocks from where the Macy’s balloons get blown up on Thanksgiving Eve, I was attracted to seeing the characters come to life.

Snoopy in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade 2008

Specifically, I began inviting friends over to share some food and drink then join me in walking over to see the ballons.  There was something magical about looking at flat pieces of heavy-duty plastic grow into a form that brought memories and a smile of delight to those watching.

The idea for having my ‘annual’ event was also routed in the Christmas Eve party that my sister-in-law Jean had every year.  It was a time to feast but also to join together to sing Christmas Carols and catch up with those that I hadn’t seen for a year.

Maybe it was 1991 when my annual Thanksgiving ritual became a part of my life.  Each year after that, the guest list got bigger and my home fuller with clients, friends, neighbors, and family.  In 2002, I didn’t have a party since I was getting ready to remodel my home; the following year, my sister Alice died a few days before Thanksgiving.  I was sick with exteme grief and loss when a friend called to tell me he had ticket to the reviewing stand of the parade. 

This year, I continue with my holiday ritual, remembering Mom and Jean, and their influence on my own Thanksgiving party, the many people who have shared the gathering with me, and the new generation of Hendersons who are now being educated on the magic of the balloons.

May the holiday be happy and your Thanksgiving meaningful.

On Monday, I had a two-hour dental appointment scheduled.  Going to the dentist is not my favorite thing to do and listening to the drill or the scraping of tartar not my favorite past-time.

Maybe that was the reason that I chose to wear an orange plaid shirt, orange pants, and my lime green faux seude jacket to the dentist.  To use colors to brighten my day.  To not be afraid of what others would think of me. 

Sitting down on a bench in a car on the R train at 9:30 a.m., I saw a few people noticing my color combination.  And, as usual, I looked around to see theirs.  In a car when all the seats were taken and many passengers were standing, I saw only one other person who was not wearing a solid black or dark colored jacket or coat.

The other person was a woman wearing a dark blue or black jacket covered with bright colored flowers.  Lovely, I thought.  And looking closer, I saw a few bright colored sweaters, shirts, and other clothing underneath the ’standard’ New York outer garmets.

Wearing black coats or clothes is standard for New Yorkers.  It’s a color that wears well (dirt and stains aren’t as obvious) and goes with almost anything.  Also, it’s the choice for the severe look popular in fashion, design, and other fields.

Growing up in Los Angeles, I remember that my mother didn’t want any of her four girls to wear black.  Since I was a size 18 when I just 12, I would go with my mom to Lane Bryant or the large size women’s section of department stores to try to find clothes that fit.  About 98% of those clothes were black.

 My older sister Alice made many of my clothes on a then old pedal powered Singer sewing machine.  Ten years older than me, she chose to work her magic with bright colored cloth, never black.  There was one exception.  One year I was a witch for Halloween and my sister Alice designed and created a fantastic costume for me complete with a homemade hat.  That costume won a prize at a competition held at our local park.  Alice created many costumes for me and another sister; we always won ribbons at local events.

A few years ago at the urging of a close friend, I went to a color consultant and was told that I should never wear black.  He said that my color was a ”bright spring” and that I could wear shades of brown but not black.  Going through my closet, I purged a lot of the dark clothes that I thought would slim me and help me fit in.  I kept one black 2-piece top and skirt for evening or special occasions.  One occasion was Alice’s funeral in 2003, when, over my mourning clothes, I wore a yellow jacket.

Writing this a few days after what turned out to be a pretty painless trip to the dentist, I realize that the colors on the subway car on Monday struck a memory chord.  The memories of the many homemade prize-winning Halloween costumes Alice created.  Memories of the choices my mother and sister made for me as a child.  Memories of the encouragement to not be like all the other girls but to be fearless about standing out by wearing a bright color combination, a combination I’ll wear as a leader in professinal groups, educator in front of audiences, coach who sits across a desk from her clients, passenger on a subway car.

Happy Halloween!  Hope your day is a bright one.  Now, I have to go and decide what I want to wear today.

In honor of Mother’s Day, I feel moved to pass along one bit of advice that I got from my mother. This advice is relevant to girls/women and boys/men on a career search — or the ambitious employed who want to stay employed or get a promotion.

Although Mom died in 1968, I can, at times, still hear her voice reciting one of her many pieces of advice.

“Don’t be like all the other girls,” she’d say if I wanted a pair of white boots just like all the other girls were wearing in TEEN magazine.

“Don’t be like all the other girls,” she’d say then proceed to tell me about the twin girls who used to live down the street and who had their own way of dressing and being in the world.

“Don’t be like all the other girls,” she’d say on any occasion to encourage me to be who I was and not someone else.

Mom was right.  When I left for college, all I wanted to be was normal and like all the other girls.  A bit of a challenge to figure out what normal was since I wound up at the University of California at Berekley during the height of the Free Speech and Vietnam War protests.

As I’ve gotten older, however, and worked my way into leadership roles and developed a business providing leadership coaching to executives, I embrace the essence of her message.   Her message: to be fully present and let others know the unique qualities you possess and the great skills you bring to the table.

Today with the economy the worst since the Great Depression, women and men looking for work—or working to keep their jobs—have to stand out, to not be like all the other girls/boys, to demonstrate their unique brand of passion and how they will contribute their skills, abilities, and talents to the workplace.

Mom would like the person that I am today.  I’m not like all the other girls.  And not like all the other women I know.  I’m me.  And that’s a good thing.

Sit back and reflect on how you stand out with your own unique brand.

Then wish your mother and other nuturing women in your life a Happy Mother’s Day!

Last year at this same time, I was on a flight from Athens, Greece, back to New York City.  With me was my niece Tomi Sue Henderson, a veterinarian who lives in a town of 146 located in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains in California.

This year, during spring break at Zicklin School of Business where I teach, I had planned to visit Tomi Sue’s father, my brother, in his small town near in the southern part of Oregon.  The launch of Temping with Tycoons and the state of the economy made me decide to stay in my big city hometown of New York.

So instead of sharing a travel report from a trip this year, I’ll reflect on some memories from last year—and tie in my report with how I feel about the economy.

Here’s a picture taken at Santorini on the last day of our “Grecian Delight” tour.  Tomi Sue has her arm around me on what was a gorgeous spring day on this “volanic” island.

You’ll notice the mostly white houses of the town of Fira clustered together at the top and down the steep incline to Tomi Sue’s right.  On Santorini, Mykonos, and other Greek islands we visited, home owners are required to paint their houses at regular intervals.  Tourists who arrive by ship or air are a major source of income for Greece, meaning that maintaining an immaculate impression at each port-of-call is an absolute necessity.

Off to my left you’ll see the steep drop off of land into the Aegean.  Santorini is believed by some to be the site of the “Lost Continent of Atlantis,” a legendary island that one day just sunk into the sea.

Santorini earned this reputation because around 1450 B.C., a catastrophe happened.  The volcano on the island erupted, the center of the island collapsed into the sea, and earthquakes reverberated throughout the Aegean, toppling some advanced civilizations as far away as the island of Crete.

The edge that we’re standing on around the sunken watery center of the island is called the caldera.  A caldera is formed by the collapse of land after a volcano erupts. 

Caldera is also a good term for what I see when thinking about what happened to the economy.  There’s been an earthquake on Wall Street that is still reverberating across the land with more layoffs at companies, foreclosures of homes, and individuals who will have to settle for “survival jobs.” 

We’re on the edge looking out from the caldera to the center of the economy, hoping that it will rise up and renew itself to restore faith in our financial system as well as opportunities get off the “career bridge” and into meaningful work.

I still want to visit my brother and I also want to return to Greece.  That’s why I’m hoping that the Wall Street we lost will be rebuilt with a solid foundation for a stronger economy and more jobs.

Here’s a sad statistic:  50% of youth under the age of 21 in an urban inner city were found to experience the sudden unexpected death of a close relative or friend. 

Last Friday, April 3, Robin Goodman, Ph.D., was the guest speaker at the Women’s Issues Committee of the New York City Chapter of the Employee Assistance Professionals Association.  When Lynda Johnson, my Co-Chair of the Committee, first heard about the work Robin does at A Caring Hand last fall, she was intent on getting Robin on our schedule of presenters.  Glad that we did.  But also sad that there is such a need for these services.  The statistic above combined with the latest news about parents shooting their children or a brother beheading his sister are troubling. 

Robin is the Director of A Caring Hand, The Billy Esposito Foundation Bereavement Center.  She speaks to a wide range of audiences on the services that can help children and their families through their grief journeys.  Parents often don’t know what to tell their children after a husband, sister, or other loved one dies.

During her presentation, Robin shared with us valuable information about how children understand death and their reactions to grief.  She also shared ways to create a framework to foster positive emotional health that can last a lifetime. 

Often, a child is not able to talk about their grief.  Robin led those in attendance through a short guided visualization then invited us to use crayons, colored pencils, or water colors to draw who or what we saw.

This was a very powerful experience for me; one that brought back memories of a brother who died when I was just five-years-old.  After he died, I would ask my mother, “Where’s Johnny?”  She would tell me that he was, ”with Jesus,” or “up in Mary’s room behind the clock.”  Robin stressed the need to be direct with children and explain the loss in terms that children can understand.

A Caring Hand offers a “Child and Family Bereavement Group” free of charge.

For further information, call A Caring Hand at 212-229-2273 or email RobinGoodman@acaringhand.org

“Blood Type:  RAGU is a hilarious and poignant exploration of the Sicilian immigrant experience based on the life of writer and performer Frank Ingrasciotta.  This one-man show features more than 20 characters, who live, love, and laugh as they struggle to thrive in a new culture, while nurturing the traditions of the old.  It’s not drama…it’s just family!”

That’s the what you’ll read on postcard announcing the run of the show at The Actor’s Playhouse, an off-Broadway theatre here in New York City.  And you could possibly have read a review of the work, “Mapping a Family’s Domestic Battleground” (New York Times, March 9, 2009).

It’s the perseverance of the performer Frank Ingrasciotta that I want to write about here.  Why?  Perseverance is what we all need during the worst economy since the Great Depression.  Holding onto whatever dream, ambition, or goal you have requires faith in yourself, relentless work, and perseverance to realize the result you seek. 

Frank and I met in a performance class twelve years ago.  The performance piece he was working on was called “Blood Type:  Ragu.”  He kept on working on it because he knew that it was a good slice of life which others could identify with and understand.  He also kept working on it because it mattered a lot to him to bring his unique experience and artistic intellect to audiences.

Frank and I kept in touch after our class ended.  I saw him perform his work in a loft in SoHo, in a small theatre in NoHo, in an even smaller theatre in Bay Shore on Long Island, and to what could barely be called a theatre since there were only a few rows of folding chairs in a teeny space on 42nd Street.

I didn’t go to these performances alone.  I went with friends, different friends each time to expose them to the work of this dedicated actor, producer, and director.

Frank came to my one-woman show that I wrote, produced, and performed in 1999 at the 76th Street Theatre Lab.  That was the end of my “stage” career.  Frank kept on performing though, finding the right combination of laughter, humor, pathos, and hope to develop the show he wanted others to see.

If I remember correctly, a producer was in the audience at that teeny space on 42nd Street.  He liked the show.  Liked it enough to book a run at the Actor’s Playhouse.  Liked it enough to work with Frank to help made his performance perseverance pay off in acknowledging his great talent.

Although your performance may be in a corporate setting and not an off-Broadway stage, you can still learn the value from following-through on what is really important to your life.  Just think of “Blood Type: Ragu” and its journey to a large audience.

In early February, I had the pleasure to meet Joe Pantoliano, an actor best known for his role as Ralph Cifaretto on the Sopranos.  I remember him most as Eddie Moscone, the bail bondsman in the movie Midnight Run starring Robert DeNiro and Charles Grodin.

Like me, Joe attended a seminar on “Executives at Risk and Addiction in the Workplace” sponsored by Lee Hecht Harrison featuring Joseph A. Califano, Jr., Founding Chair and President of The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University.  (More on what I learned in another post.) 

At the end of the program, Joey Pants (as some call him) announced a new initiative he’s started, No Kidding, MeToo!

The mission posted on his website is, “No Kidding, Me Too! is an organization whose purpose is to remove the stigma attached to brain dis-ease through education and the breaking down of societal barriers.  Our goal is to empower those with brain dis-ease to admit their illness, seek treatment, and become even greater members of society.”

When I went to the NKM2 website, I looked at the list of brain dis-eses and noticed one was missing:  borderline personality disorder.  I’m very familiar with that disorder.

My company’s mission is to help leaders level the playing field of obstacles blocking optimum workplace performance and career advancement.

The mission evolved from my own battle to remove a significant hindrance while working to be a leader:  borderline personality disorder (BPD).  BPD is a serioius mental illness that is diagnosed more often than schizophrenia or bipolar (manic-depressive illness) combined.

Recent research shows a prevalence of BPD in nearly six percent of adult Americans—which translates to 18 million who experience poor self-image, impulsivity, rage, bodily self-harm, recurrent suicidal behavior, unstable relationships, and frequent career changes.

Among other approaches to my recovery, I read books about others who suffered and recovered from mental illness.  Dr. Kay Redfield Jamison writes about her history of manic-depressive illness in An Unquiet Mind:  A Memoir of Mood and Madness.  She states, “As the years went by I became more and more determined to pull out some good from all of the pain, to try and put my illness to some use.”  The author continues to say that tenure as a professor of psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine was, “a symbol of stability I craved and the ultimate recognition I sought for having competed and survived in the normal world.”

One prominent symbol of my stability is my ”recognition” as an Adjunct Instructor teaching, “Employee Development and Training” to Human Resources majors within the Management Department at the Zicklin School of Business.  Zicklin, located in Manhattan, is part of Baruch College, the nation’s most ethnically diverse campus. 

Another is working with leaders who trust their careers to me.  It’s a trust I take very seriously.  It’s a trust I’ve earned working to be a leader and gaining workplace intelligence.

I’m making the decision to go public with my disorder to pull out some good from all the pain and put it to some use.  There is hope for those who have BPD.  There is hope for your talent and leadership effectiveness to emerge from behind the cloud of mental illness.  There is hope that your talent that can take you to places—and into leadership positions—you never thought possible.  There is hope for you to make valuable contributions to others.

Like Joey Pants, do not let the stigma of a mental illness or a fear of psychotherapy deter you from seeking help.   Help is out there.

One way you can find help about BPD is to visit National Education Alliance for Borderline Personliaty Disorder.  There you will find information and resources on this serious mental illness.